


Prayers in the Snow

by Adadzio



Series: Smut [6]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Infidelity, Light Angst, Revelations, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-29
Updated: 2015-04-29
Packaged: 2018-03-26 07:28:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3842281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adadzio/pseuds/Adadzio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The night is dark and full of terrors, her mind chanted dutifully, but her heart dwelled on naught but her king.</i> </p><p>The night before Stannis marches on Winterfell, his priestess finds him praying in the snow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prayers in the Snow

"He's...p-praying, my lady. Near the Silent Tower."

The scrambling steward's words had an immediate effect on the priestess, her visage registering a split second of emotion before smoothing back into an exquisite pale canvas. All the same, Melisandre's heart leaped in delighted surprise. _He is praying, truly? To our Lord?_

She considered the poor steward—one under Jon Snow's command, no doubt tasked with overseeing their accommodations and the king's never-ending demands. She knew the Night's Watch were wary of her, and furthermore, she knew what they said about her. _Foreign witch. Red whore._ Melisandre raised a scarlet eyebrow at the steward's nervous countenance. "I will seek him at the fires, then."

 _The words of men matter not_ , she reminded herself, watching the skittish boy clamber away with an armful of firewood.

As she slipped past the ancient studded door of the King's Tower, waving off the guards, Melisandre's scarlet silks and bare feet collected the dust of the newest snows. Yet she did not consider the cold, nor the pitch black of the evening sky. _The night is dark and full of terrors_ , her mind chanted dutifully, but her heart dwelled on naught but her king.

Stannis was not a religious man—she had long accepted this fact—nor was he remotely interested in the unseen blessings of R'hllor. "That which is true in your fires, your visions," he had admitted one night, "is only of use to me when it serves my cause."

And that was his way. Melisandre contented herself with that, and tailored her spiritual counsel to his political aims. The king was obsessed with duty, with justice, and for all his hard-earned trust in her, Melisandre knew not to expect any further interest in her faith.

Until now, perhaps. _He's praying, my lady._ And he was; she finally spotted him to the east of the common hall.

 _True Warrior of Light_ , she thought, but the sentiment was a dull ache in her breast as she studied him from afar. No matter how fervently she prayed, it was becoming more and more difficult to believe in her own prophecy. But Melisandre was an unrelenting woman, and she came to Stannis even in these darkest of nights. _He is still my Azor Ahai,_ her heart whispered selfishly.

More importantly, he was still her king, and he currently knelt in the snows a distance from the yard at a little abandoned nightfire. It was nothing more than a small shelter of decaying wood and a lone fire pit burning a feeble column of heat against the icy wind. She marvelled to see that he was still fully dressed. Melisandre longingly considered his lean form for a moment—the ever-tense lines of his back, broad shouldered and tapering at the waist, the clenched, shadowed jaw, the rigid grip of his hands. The spires of his crown cast twisting shadows before the fire he now found unlikely refuge in. When she approached him, it was as one would approach a flighty fawn.

 _And with good reason_ , she mused. The moment her red skirts pooled next to him, Stannis's eyes shot open suspiciously, the quiet winter night disrupted.

"My lady," he addressed her. Blue eyes raked quickly down her form before settling back on the flames with a sigh. A pause; then, "You do not wear the furs I purchased, so I'll not bother with the merchants for shoes."

Neither king nor priestess took their gaze from the flickering fire, a comfortable silence falling between them. Still, Melisandre's lips quirked slightly in pleasure. She would never confess it, but she delighted in his dry concern for her wellbeing, even if his words were always rough, always weary.

"Your Grace," Melisandre greeted him. She waited a long moment before continuing softly, "I did not believe the steward, yet here you are." Another pause. Her words were deliberate, calming. "Most of the Castle has retired for the night..."

Stannis turned tired eyes upon her once again, this time to carefully study the gentle curve of her ruby lips, her white cheek; the enticing lift of her brow. _Whole worlds weigh upon him_ , she thought sadly, studying him in return. He cleared his throat and began to rise, but the red priestess caught his arm and dragged him gently back down to the snow.

"But stay, my king," she entreated, "just another moment before the fire."

Stannis adopted a pained grimace. "The snow may not affect you, but I am not so immune to its chill."

 _Nor to the heat of my fires_ , she thought. Her melodious laugh drifted suggestively into his ears. "Then permit me to warm you, Sire." Her flushed hand found its way to the wiry muscles of his shoulder, up to to his neck, sneaking beneath the stiff collar. Stannis's breath caught harshly at the feel of heated fingers dancing upon his skin.

Understanding her intent, he caught her wrist firmly in warning. "We cannot."

Melisandre's red eyes sparkled with mischief. "Is winter not coming, sire?" Her veins were thick with unbidden desire. "Shall we not save each other from the frozen night?"

He scowled, knowing she referred not to the cold of the snows. Still, he relaxed his grip on her delicate skin, grudgingly allowing the red priestess to shift in front of him. As she did so, she replaced the dancing flames of the fire with those of her own body. _She was fire, he knew that well enough._  Melisandre's lips met his own. The coppery hair that kissed her waist now tickled his arms, tempting, inviting his arms to encircle her heat, like streams of fire melting hard iron. How many times had he fallen into her fire? How many times had she pushed him? _The flesh is weak, rebellious, depraved..._

A sigh passed between them as they each yielded to insistent lips and hands. His priestess was just as blunt and impatient as he; she wasted no time in their illicit consummation, pushing her king into a sitting position upon the chilled ground and lowering her scarlet form onto his lap. _This is wrong, this is selfish, this is foolish…_ A violent parting of fabric, a few fluid motions, and Melisandre had enveloped his hardness into the liquid heat of her body. Stannis groaned unwillingly, a guttural, discordant cry as his forehead pressed against hers.

"Woman, if someone sees— "

"No one will see, sire. And if they do, they will think we are keeping each other warm," Melisandre giggled breathlessly, grinding her pelvis against his and coaxing another deep groan from her king's clenched jaw. "I see only two people warming each other whilst they pray."

Stannis was clearly scandalized even as he roughly gripped her hips through red silks. "What would your god think of such talk? Surely a priestess should not speak thus of her faith." As if to punish her, he brought Melisandre down forcefully, sheathing himself fully within her. She shuddered, willingly allowed him to take control. _He needs this_ , she realized. Again and again the king clutched bruisingly at her thighs, her hips, her waist, establishing an angry tempo to match the deafening rush of blood in his ears.

Melisandre stifled a cry at his harsh lovemaking, answering his accusations with the raking of her nails down his neck. As she rode him in a haze of pained pleasure, she delighted in the red rivers that began to trickle beneath his collar, salty and hot despite the chill of the air around them. "The Lord created us man and woman. He finds no shame in the union of His children. My king..." The red priestess quickened their pace still, an unspoken challenge. "My king, is this not the most ecstatic of prayers?"

The king did not answer. He simply grit his teeth harder, most certainly experiencing the vague onset of disappointment, the inevitable, prickling discomfort that flooded him after failure to control the primal instincts of his own body. He did not seem to feel ecstasy. Not even his favoured priestess could extinguish his deeply imbedded shame of lust, of passion, of feeling.

But Melisandre did not care. She dragged her teeth down his rough jaw and neck, relishing the jagged texture against her tongue. "Give yourself to the fire, my king...there is power...beauty...in surrendering to R'hllor…" She felt her own elation build in time to their savage thrusts, she felt the fire hot at her back, lines of perspiration trapped beneath her tight gown, sticky in the valley between her bound breasts. She felt the heat within her belly burning to a white-hot climax; her eyes fluttered shut, and the devotion spilled from her lips before she could contain it. "Oh, Stannis…"

And at the sound of his name on adoring lips, the king came to a violent understanding of the ecstasy she spoke of, the sweet, painful surrender of their adulterous communion. He followed her over the edge, tumbling, down, down, into the very flames of his fire priestess, choking on her heat, on her. "Melisandre," was all he knew, and she was Stannis's anchor even as she clung to him tightly.

The king and his priestess remained in that forbidden position, intimately entwined and half-frozen before a fire far from the Castle, hearts pounding and breath hitched in the stillness of the winter night. After several languid moments, Melisandre shifted achingly. She felt his seed trickle down her thigh.

Hazily she wondered if she might ever fall pregnant—not with a third shadow or fourth, but with a real son, a son to be the living image of Stannis Baratheon. _Would he be pleased?_ Melisandre doubted it. The time had passed for such reckless passion; if she were to carry a bastard now, how could she face her duty again, and all those who looked to her for spiritual guidance? How could she lie helpless and frozen at the Wall with the wild people and their trees, with the distrustful, bitter exchanges of Lord Snow and Queen Selyse, with the ashes of dead men and false gods? How could she risk shaming her king in such a way?

 _I cannot be without Stannis_. In a stabbing moment of clarity, Melisandre admitted that he was not the Azor Ahai in her fires. Hot tears choked her throat. _He is not Azor Ahai, but Lord, I cannot lose him_. The fire still warmed her back and the snow cooled her bare feet, enticing her to curl into the hard embrace of her king.

He stiffened abruptly, as he always did, quickly remembering himself. As he pulled away, avoiding the unnatural gleam of her eyes, Melisandre desperately prayed for a moment more of intimacy with her king. _The road ahead is unclear, R'hllor. I see nothing in your flames, nothing but Snow. I am afraid._ But R'hllor did not speak to her, then, and Stannis was a pragmatic and prudish man. He set about righting their snow-dusted clothing and bringing them both to stand on shaky limbs.

Even so, he allowed a calloused thumb to linger a moment over her ethereal, pale skin. There was the sad ghost of a smile upon his own gaunt face. "A prayer indeed, my lady."

The red priestess furrowed her brow, tightening fiery silks around her burning body as she did so.  _He still wants to pray? Now?_ Still, she leaned into his rare caress.

Understanding her confusion, Stannis shook his head curtly. When he spoke again, it was a quiet sigh and a murmured confession. "It seems your name is the only prayer I know."


End file.
